I just wanted to take a moment and share this post as I complete my WaniKani journey of over 4 years today.
When I first started, kanji felt so dauntingāalmost like an impossible task. After a few failed attempts at self-organized kanji study, I discovered WaniKani, gave it a try, and immediately knew this would be the right path for me.
Over these 4+ years, a lot of things changed for me: I completed my masterās thesis, graduated, and have now been working full time for over 3 years. My consistency definitely had some ups and downs along the way. One big thing that slowed me down was not using vacation modeāI only tried it for the first time about 2 months ago, and I really wish I had used it earlier for vacations and business trips.
I want to thank the creators of WaniKani for providing such a wonderful tool for learning.
Here are some of my stats for those who are curious:
Congratulations! Always interesting to see others stats. Good luck with the reading etc. I find I don`t have much time for anything but Wanikani right now. Looking forward to getting to where you are.
Thanks! I felt the same, I pretty much put most of the other Japanese studies on-hold while doing WaniKani. I only did WaniKani āon the sideā while maintaining my job and other hobbies. So it took me probably longer than most people, but the workload was manageable. During the later stages I aimed for around 120 reviews per day and no more than 8 lessons for Kanji or 12 lessons for vocabulary per day.
Congratulations. I love this journey! I saw your other comment about hwo many reviews and lessons. It is helpful to know that you do not have to get that review number to 0 all the time. Were you doing grammar on those levels when it was longer?
I havenāt done much grammer studying during the past few years. I studied grammar to intermediate level before I started WaniKani. (I also took some classes back then in university).
Also during all this time I kept watching anime in japanese (with english subtitles for the most part), so I feel like my vocabulary is quite good. A couple weeks ago I tried listening to some podcasts and noticed that I understand almost everything or at least the gist, even when 2 native speakers are speaking with each other. It really feels like a second awakening.
If you only studied WaniKani and not much else youāll probably experience the same thing as I did - despite knowing a ton of Kanji and vocab and N5 grammar, I could still hardly read anything. Just push on, look up any grammar you donāt understand (I use chatgpt a lot for that) and the more you read, the better it will click.
Congratulation! Iām impressed with the amount of items burned. If you have a good podcast recommendation let me know! (I currently listen to YUYUę„ę¬čŖć®ććććć£ć¹ć ro practice listening, but I sometimes think his podcast is a bit boring)
I enjoy the Miku Real Japanese Podcast, especially episodes with guests. If you havenāt already, give it a try.
I think Yuyu was a guest in at least one episode there as well.
Big congrats to you from the WaniKani team! The consistency paid off and you did it! And very exciting to hear about the āsecond awakeningā and realizing how much you could understand given the knowledge you acquired. Layering grammar on top of that will pay off big time. Congrats again!
Iām impressed with the amount of items burned. If you have a good podcast recommendation let me know! 
(I currently listen to YUYUę„ę¬čŖć®ććććć£ć¹ć ro practice listening, but I sometimes think his podcast is a bit boring)